Chapter 13 - The Ultimatum
Mark stopped a few paces away from the bassinet, his dark eyes scanning the room before locking onto Amy. He looked exhausted, older, and entirely defeated. The confident, domineering posture he had worn in the formal dining room earlier that day was completely gone. He took a hesitant step forward, holding out his hands in a gesture of supplication.
“Amy,” Mark said, his voice cracking slightly in the quiet corridor. “How is he? The nurse at the front desk said his fever broke.”
Amy didn’t move from her spot beside the bassinet. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest, her gaze cold and piercing.
“He’s stable. The doctor said if we had waited any longer because of your mother’s games—or because you ordered your security guard to trap me—he might have suffered permanent damage,” Amy said, her voice entirely devoid of warmth or emotion.
Mark flinched as if he had been physically struck. He dropped his hands to his sides, looking down at the linoleum floor for a long, agonizing moment before meeting her eyes again.
“I’m sorry, Amy. I was... I was blind. I was caught up in the estate crisis, and Mother knew exactly which buttons to push to make me doubt you,” Mark whispered, his voice trembling with genuine remorse. He stepped closer, laying the stack of legal papers he was holding onto the nearby plastic chair. “I fired David... no, wait, not David. I fired the security guard. And I told my mother she has forty-eight hours to vacate the main guest house and move into a downtown apartment.”
Amy stared at him in disbelief, a bitter, humorless laugh escaping her lips.
“You fired the guard? You’re kicking Eleanor out to a downtown apartment? And you expect me to just clap and say thank you?” Amy stepped away from the bassinet, confronting him face-to-face. “Mark, it took you watching security footage of your own mother framing your wife for theft to finally realize she is a manipulative monster. And even then, you still locked me on the property while our son was burning up.”
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“I panicked!” Mark pleaded, his voice rising slightly before he caught himself and lowered it, glancing nervously at the nearby nurses' station. “I was dealing with a ruined party, a fire in the kitchen, missing estate deeds, and a wife who looke
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